Was 2009 a Tipping Point for Unified Communications and Video Conferencing?

Jessica Davis

Video conferencing goes down market. Maybe you saw Cisco’s telepresence system portrayed as the go-to video conferencing used by the U.S. president on the television program "24." Sure, it’s cool. But nobody ever thought that every business would have a telepresence room, right? Well, maybe not a dedicated room, but vendors sought to make some of their high-end telepresence technologies more mainstream in 2009, offering slimmed-down systems at lower prices. For example, LifeSize introduced a sub-$2,500 system. And Polycom introduced a video conferencing-enabled phone.

Jessica Davis covers the channel for eWeek and Channel Insider. Her technology journalism career began well before anyone heard of the World Wide Web and has included stints at Infoworld, Electronic News/EDN, and the Philadelphia Business Journal. Her work has also appeared on CNN and Forbes.com. She has covered hardware, software and networking, as well as the business side of technology. She has won several journalism awards, including a national ASBPE award for best staff-written column, and was named Marketing Computers hardest working tech journalist on their inaugural list of top tech journalists. Jessica can be reached at jessica.davis@ziffdavisenterprise.com